In our cabin, Kennedy set to work immediately after opening his traveling laboratory and taking from it a small kit of tools and some materials that looked almost like those for an actor’s make-up.

I saw that he wished to be left alone and retired as gracefully as I could, determined to employ the time in watching the others.  I found Norma seated in one of the wicker chairs on the after-deck, talking earnestly with Dominick, and, hesitating whether I should interrupt them, I paused between the library and the sumptuously fitted main saloon.  I was glad that I did, for just that moment of hesitation was enough for me to surprise a man peering out at them through the curtains of a window, with every evidence of intense dislike of the situation.  Looking closer, I saw that it was Gage.  Had I expected anything of the sort I should have gone even more cautiously.  As it was, though I surprised him, he heard me in time to conceal his real intentions by some trivial action.

It seemed as if our arrival had been succeeded by a growth of suspicion among the members of the little party.  Each, as far as I could make out, was now on guard, and, remembering that Kennedy had often said that that was a most fruitful time, since it was just under such circumstances that even the cleverest could not help incriminating himself, I hastened back to let Craig know how matters were.  He was at work now on a most grotesque labor, and, as he placed on it the finishing touches, he talked abstractedly.

“What I am using, Walter,” he explained, “might be called a new art.  Lately science has perfected the difficult process of reconstructing the faces of human beings of whom only the skull or a few bones, perhaps, are obtainable.

“To the unskilled observer a fleshless skull presents little human likeness and certainly conveys no notion of the exact appearance in life of the person to whom it belonged.  But by an ingenious system of building up muscles and skin upon the bones of the skull this appearance can be reproduced with scientific accuracy.

“The method, I might say, has been worked out independently by Professor von Froriep, in Germany, and by Dr. Henri Martin, in France.  Its essential principle consists in ascertaining from the examination of many corpses the normal thickness of flesh that overlies a certain bone in a certain type of face.  From these calculations the scientists by elaborate processes build up a face on the skull.”

I watched him, with an uncontrollable fascination.  “For instance,” he went on, “a certain type of bone always has nearly the same thickness of muscle over it.  A very fine needle with graduations of hundredths of an inch is used in these measurements.  As I have done here, a great number of tiny plaster pyramids varying in height according to the measurements obtained by these researches are built up over the skull, representing the thickness of the muscles.  The next step will be to connect them together by a layer of clay the surface of which is flush with the tips of the pyramids.  Then wax and grease paint and a little hair will complete it.  You see, it is really scientific restoration of the face.  I must finish it.  Meanwhile, I wish you would watch Norma.  I’ll join you in a short time.”